Cleaning products are in constant use in daily life. Some cleaning products include both a cleaning implement and a refill therefor. The cleaning products may include a reusable device and sheet, or other refill, removably attachable thereto. The sheet may be discarded after a single use, used a few times or laundered and restored. Often the implement and refill are sold together as a kit.
The kit may be advertised, displayed and sold at point of sale in a package. Such packaging performs multiple functions. For example, the packaging protects the implement, and any refill optionally sold therewith, during transport to the store, and again to the user's home or other point of use. The packaging holds the optional refill(s) together with the implement, if they are sold as a kit, to prevent the user from mixing incompatible products. The packaging further provides for display of the implement, and any other contents, so the use is aware what s/he is purchasing.
Typical packaging includes a cardboard box. The box may be generally or exactly parallelepipedally shaped, particularly elongate and in a degenerate case may subtend a cubical shape. But the well known tradeoff is still present. The box is preferably strong enough to present the contents during shipping to and handling at point of sale, but not require excessive material creating undue expense.
Environmental concerns also are a consideration in not using excessive material—beyond that needed to hold a kit together and protect the contents. Yet another consideration is point of display. The implement may be irregularly shaped, making the package difficult to display at point of sale. Yet, the package should be easy for the retail personnel to properly stock, so that display is correct at the point of sale.
Finally, the package allows the prospective purchaser to view the contents of the package, to make the purchase decision. Illumination in a retail setting may be uneven or generally poor. The prospective purchaser may approach the packaging from either the left or right side, as s/he walks through an aisle.
Various attempts have been made in the art to deal with the tradeoffs and competing requirements set forth above, as disclosed in US patents and application: U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,854,181; 3,869,062; 4,177,918; 5,495,983; 5,971,265; 6,059,180; 6,474,539 and 2013/0087476. The attempts generally include front windows, windows which intercept two contiguous sides of the package, and interior compartments. But none of these attempts solve the problems or resolve the tradeoffs noted above.